Country Debt to GDP Ratios

I certainly don't understand the implications of external vs. public debt and ratios to GDP but the below data visualization via Many-eyes shows the following: 

• UK has an external debt ratio 5 times larger than its public debt ratio.
• Spain has an external debt ratio 3 times larger than its public debt ratio.
• Japan has a public debt ratio about 5 times more than its external debt ratio.

External debt (or foreign debt) is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. 


Public debt (also known as government debt, national debt, sovereign debt) is money (or credit) owed by a central government.    

Interesting Fact: Research in Finland

Finns have unwavering confidence in science and research, which play an important role in Finnish society. The government and business investment in research and development represents over 3.5% of the gross national product, which is among the highest rates in the world. By comparison, the U.S. investment is a little over 2.5% of GDP.

Finland employs 36% more researchers than any other country within the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).



Thanks to Many-Eyes for the visualization capabilities and OECD for the data.

technorati tags: garrysblog, manyeyes, research, researchers, finland, oecd

Growth Potential of Internet Users

Thanks to data by eMarketer and visualization by Many-Eyes, we can see the growth potential of Internet users. In 2006, the population penetration of the U.S. (63.6%) was over 5 times that of China (10.2%).

In 2011, China will have an 18% population penetration and is expected to exceed the number of Internet users in the U.S. by 40 million. From 2006 to 2011, China's Internet Users increase 84% from 133.5 million to 245.5 million.

technorati tags: garrysblog, manyeyes, emarketer, population, internet, users, china, unitedstates

20-Year Population Change by Country

I took the estimated population of countries in 2007 and compared it to the predicted population in 2027.

Interesting notes:

• Uganda increases 101%
• India becomes the largest country by population in 2026
• Russia and most Eastern European countries decrease at least 10%

Thanks to many-eyes for this capability, and the Census Bureau for the data.

technorati tags: garrysblog, population, manyeyes, many-eyes, world, countries, change

What's with Multiple Sclerosis and the Irish?

Is MS caused by some Irish gene? If it is, it’s probably a green gene.

With the embarrassingly little that we know about Multiple Sclerosis, I would guess Ireland's high rate of MS is just some aberration in demographics. It would be good to have statistics of Scotland and Wales.

We just finished MS Awareness Week, and we’re in the middle of March, National MS Month. I salute those afflicted with MS, and I hope MS Research gets better faster.

The tree map below shows that Ireland has the highest MS rate of 60-some countries analyzed. Following Ireland is Hungary, Canada and Russia. The U.S. is 11th.

The world map below is another way to look and understand this data.




Thanks to Many-Eyes.com for the visualization capabilities. Data was obtained through the MS International Federation web site.

technorati tags: garrysblog, ms, multiplesclerosis, multiple_sclerosis, ireland, data, many-eyes, manyeyes, information, understanding, management, knowledge, visual, visualization, downthemspath, msif